


Born to Run

by persephone_bound



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Peripheral Mystrade, Post Reichenbach, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Which eventually becomes resolved, Which will happen, because I'm a sucker for sexytimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone_bound/pseuds/persephone_bound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because it was never walking with Sherlock Holmes—it was running through the battlefield."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My very first contribution to the Sherlock/Johnlock fandom! Unbeta'd and not Brit-picked, so all mistakes are my own. I'm signed up for my first half-marathon in April, so I couldn't quite get the image of John running (to escape, to expend energy, to feel alive, etc.) in the wake of Sherlock's death out of my head.

_It's as close to home as he has now. This ritual, this supplication of his soul. It's in sweat, and panting breaths, and the established rhythm. Steady, and methodical. One foot in front of the other. Repeat. His shoes on pavement, setting a heartbeat rhythm that pounds across London, mile after mile. Each footfall a step toward benediction._

* * *

  
**I**  
  
It begins when everything ends, a few days after John watched Sherlock Holmes, his best friend in the world, his savior, walk off the edge of the world, arms outstretched, and plummet from the roof of St. Bart's. It’s after the blood-soaked pavement, the frantic bleary-eyed grasping for Sherlock's hand, _NopulseNopulseNopulse_ violently bashing against the inside of his skull. It’s after the anger and breakdown. The gasping— _can't breathe_ —sobbing— _can't breathe_ , _can't breathe_. A panic attack that grips him so strongly, he smells arid desert wind, hot and choking in his throat, and eventually has to be restrained by three nurses and sedated. 

Finally returning to Baker Street, falling to the sitting room floor, every time he blinks, another few hours have come and gone.  
  
And he’s still alive. Alone.  
  
Blink.  
  
Mrs. Hudson is here, crying, making him tea with shaking hands that cause the china to clink loudly in the quiet flat. Begging him to get up, to sleep, to eat something, _please. Please, Dr. Watson._  
  
Blink.  
  
Lestrade accompanied by Mycroft—odd that. They’re speaking, their voices muffled and distant as though they’re under six feet of water. Or maybe he is. They give each other strained looks.  
  
Blink.  
  
Darkness, night, and a silence that seems so much vaster than it has any right to be. Because that’s the problem with someone like Sherlock, who seems to take up the whole room as soon as he enters it: the hole he's left behind is monstrous. Cavernous. Able to swallow John up.  
  
Blink.  
  
Time feels more like an accordion than its usual straight line. One minute compressed, fast, too fast, and in the next drawn and so slow he thinks he could lose himself in the stretch and pull of hours. Gratefully, he surrenders.  
  
Blink.  
  
It’s three days later, the day of the funeral. John is more aware than he has been in the preceding days. But his fingers tremble. His legs shake. He feels a restless accumulation of nerves and energy like too much caffeine in his blood, thrumming through his body. He’s brimming with energy that’s accustomed to being spent in car chases, and gunfights, and running, running, running. Because it was never _walking_ with Sherlock Holmes—it was running through the battlefield.  
  
At half-one, Mrs. Hudson comes up to let him know the car has arrived. She finds him pacing, shaking, sweating. His leg, which he'd always assumed would give him trouble should he ever desist in his activities with Sherlock, does not hurt with his phantom war wound. It aches. All of him aches, and he thinks that if he does not _do_ something, anything, he will be ripped apart with this aching, awful, painful wanting. He wants. He wants so badly for things he can’t even begin to explain. Things he’s worked for so long _not_ to understand.  
  
What he knows he does not want, though, is to watch that casket lowered into the wet, dark earth. To watch brilliant, irritating, wonderful, maddening Sherlock Holmes disappear forever into the cold ground. No, no. Never that.  
  
Mrs. Hudson tries to calm him, corral him, but they get only as far as the front door of Baker Street before John shakes off her oppressively gentle embrace and rushes past the waiting black car with its familiar female occupant typing away on her mobile. Past the swiveling CCTV cameras. He runs; it's not decision he's consciously aware of making. He just needs to escape. To get away. To keep moving until he can no longer stand or breathe or begin to think about the wanting.  
  
He runs. He runs in formal shoes and pressed trousers, shirtsleeves, a jacket, and a tie. A tie Sherlock would have hated and would have delighted in explaining in great detail why John hates it too. He blinks away tears and runs past cars, across intersections, through greenery and parks. At one point it rains briefly. But John doesn’t care, because for the first time in days, his mind feels almost blissfully clear, and he doesn’t see Sherlock's face behind every blink of his eyes. Doesn’t feel the burning want of Sherlock in every beat of his heart, thrumming through his system like a drug. He runs until he can only feel the pounding of his feet, and the only burning is the breath in his chest. Until there's only the vague lingering hope that if he keeps moving, if he can just go a little faster, just a bit farther, he can outrun this reality, this world without Sherlock Holmes.  
  
He runs until he’s gasping and his feet are so sore he can barely take another step. Through the stiff leather of the shoes, he can feel the blistered skin, rubbed raw and hot with blood. When he finally stops, he is so physically exhausted that he can’t even begin to want. He can only be thankful that he has his wallet, can fumble with shaking hands for his Oyster Card, and stumble to the nearest Tube stop at Clapham South back to Baker Street.  
  
He has only enough energy to make it up the seventeen steps to the empty flat, and down the hall into Sherlock's bedroom, the one room he's yet to enter since its occupant's death. Throwing the door open, he stares through his bone-deep exhaustion into the darkness, frantically shoving aside memories, until he finally collapses onto the unmade bed, carried off to sleep through his tears by the heady scent of Sherlock that still lingers on the bedclothes.  
  
Fourteen hours later, he wakes up.  
  
*  
  
John’s father had always instilled in him the idea that the best and most lasting habits are formed organically. You can’t force them, or you’ll always be forcing them. They have to happen naturally.  
  
For John, every few days, when the build-up of energy becomes too much to bear, he dons an old pair of trainers that he’s managed to dig out of the back of his wardrobe, and sets off through the streets of London. At first, he runs without destination, without planning. He just goes, desperate to allow the steady pace of his feet to drown out the ever-rising tide of his thoughts and feelings. He runs until he is so exhausted that the overwhelming swirl of everything ebbs away. He runs and runs until he can’t anymore. And then he takes the Tube back to the flat. At first, it’s three to four miles at a time; not at all bad considering he hasn’t maintained a consistent exercise routine since his pre-army days. But he supposes that chasing criminals down back alleys and across rooftops had to count for something.  
  
The time in between runs, though, is unbearable. He barely leaves Sherlock’s bed, and makes a conscious effort to sleep as much as possible. The near-constant exhaustion he feels makes this surprisingly easy. Even sitting up in bed, most mornings, staring into the darkness that permeates this part of the flat, is enough to make him want to lie right back down again and never get up. Easy enough to do when the first thought that runs through his mind every morning is, “What’s the point?”  
  
It’s not long before he permanently relocates to Sherlock's bedroom for no reason that he wants to explain. When Mrs. Hudson asks, John mubles something about better proximity to the kitchen. It’s easier to quickly grab the food that she leaves for him before collapsing back into bed. He's grateful she doesn't question him further.  
  
The real reason, he can barely admit even to himself; it makes his chest clench in an unbearable way.  
  
*  
  
It takes a few days for him to notice that the bedclothes no longer smell of Sherlock. That afternoon, when Mycroft drops in for a suspiciously-timed visit, he finds the sitting room trashed. The books have been torn from the shelves, papers and folders litter the floor like a crisp ivory carpet. And John, lying on his back in the middle of it all, staring unseeing, at the ceiling. His eyes are swollen and red, his skin pale and blotchy.  
  
"I don't know how to help you," he hears Mycroft admit in a quiet tone that is little more than a whisper. John has never hated anyone as much as he does Mycroft Holmes in that moment. Not only for the role he played in his little brother’s death, but because John is struck with the realization that this insufferable man is his sole remaining physical connection to Sherlock. It’s this thought that makes him desperately want to pull Mycroft into his arms and sob. To breathe in what lingering trace of Sherlock still persists in this world, absorb his molecules into his body. Instead he clenches his fists and says nothing; after five minutes of silence, Mycroft leaves.  
  
An hour after Mycroft's departure, he puts on his trainers, even though he's just run the previous day. He needs to be anywhere except Baker Street. Can’t stand it. The books _he_ read, the case notes with his scratchy handwriting, the stains on the kitchen table. Every corner, every angle, every smell, is whispering the story of Sherlock Holmes, and John can’t stand to hear it anymore.  
  
He practically bolts out the door, quickly losing himself in the steady rhythm set by his footfalls, the beat of his heart, the even in and out of his breath, all set against the backdrop of London. Traffic and people and restaurants and shops. People living their lives. People who don’t lie in bed every morning trying desperately to find one _good_ reason to get up. People who don’t have to be fed by their landladies. Who don’t cry in the shower. Or sit in their dead flatmate's wardrobe because the clothes there haven’t quite lost his scent yet, especially since he’s careful to keep the doors shut tightly and not go in too often.  
  
But, really, none of that crosses his mind, because here, running through the afternoon streets, is the only place he finds silence.  
  
He’s been running for forty minutes or so before he realizes that instead of taking the Tube back to Baker Street, he could probably just turn around and run back. So he does.  
  
The day after the next, without the violent rush of unspent energy, without feeling like he’s drowning in reality, he gets up, and runs again. And again the day after.  
  
And slowly, very slowly, he finds that when he comes home from a run, he can shower and sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, as opposed to crawling directly back into Sherlock's bed. The lingering anxiety that twists thick knots in his stomach, the threat of a panic attack at the near-crushing silence that pervades the flat—they're both still there, but somehow, with tea, he can just manage to face them.   
  
It’s not much, but it’s progress.  
  
*  
  
It’s few weeks later, he’s sipping tea from his favorite mug, drops of clean water still clinging to the back of his neck, when he has the urge to check a passage from an old Martin Amis novel he read years ago. Teacup in hand, he searches the reorganized bookshelves—Mrs. Hudson's doing—and locates the novel. He sits down in his chair to read, and an hour or so passes unnoticed before he suddenly looks up toward the chair opposite him, words on the tip of his tongue to share with Sherlock. Such a natural and practiced urge. A move he's made so many times, it’s instinct.  
  
The empty chair is like a punch in the stomach. Swift, and sudden, the panic attack overtakes him, and he can’t breathe. Because it’s here, in the quiet blue light of evening, that the grief still creeps up on him with shocking swiftness.  
  
The book drops to the floor, followed by the splash and crack of his tea mug, as his vision blurs with unshed tears. He pulls his knees up to his heaving chest, and sobs, staring at the empty black leather chair, seeing the hundreds of times Sherlock sat there—stiff and judgmental, sulking and listless, quiet and contemplative. Sherlock with his fingers steepled in thought, just brushing against his lips, impossibly bright eyes narrowed. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of devastatingly unremarkable moments that had all added up to this place feeling like home. This room was home with that beautiful man in his blue dressing gown, flopped petulantly across the sofa. The streets were home when he was following the whooshing flap of his dark coat tails. Hell, an Italian restaurant felt like home when Sherlock Holmes was across the table. The only real home John has ever known as an adult, and he’s suddenly realizing that it isn’t a place, but a person. A person who he’ll never see again.  
  
He cries with thick, ugly sobs, until there are no tears left. It’s longer until he actually feels like he can breathe again. Finally, he stands, picking up his book and broken mug and placing both on the kitchen table to be dealt with later, before heading to bed. His body moves, obeying the commands of his brain, because it is the only thing he knows how to do.  
  
The next morning he wakes at half-five, and stares into the quiet shadows of the room, feeling different. Where before there had been only the dark hollowness in his gut, there’s now something small and almost peaceful. It's strangely exhilarating, and he decides that he’s tired of running in the afternoons, and quickly dresses and laces up his trainers, leaving the flat at quarter after. Seven miles later, he’s back again, and by half-eight, is showered, dressed, and sitting on the couch, phone in hand.  
  
It rings only twice before Nurse Carlisle answers. She transfers him, no questions asked.  
  
"Hi," comes the tentative voice from the other end of the line. "How are you?"  
  
"A little better," John says, and he’s surprised when he realizes it’s not entirely a lie. "I'm just . . . god, Sarah. I've been an utter bastard."  
  
"No, no," she insists, but he can tell there’s a smile in her voice. She clears her throat, and when she speaks again, it’s with complete seriousness. "John, I'm just, I’m so, sorry. I can't imagine what you've been going through. None of us . . . god. Look, you should take as long as you need."  
  
"It's been over two months," he says, his voice weary with what those two months have wrought. He sighs. "I don't expect you to have space. Just thought I'd check."  
  
"You're an amazing doctor, John," Sarah says quietly, the smile back in her voice. "We'd be foolish to let you get away."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd honestly intended to update this a bit more regularly, but as is always the case, life got in the way. The second part of this ran longer than expected, and it appears to be a continuing trend with the later chapters I'm working on as well. Alas.

**Part II**  
  
It’s easy for John to slip into the familiar embrace of routine, the thoughtless obedience, and allow the hot, too-bright days of August to melt unnoticed into September. He’s a doctor and soldier by training; he can survive perfectly fine with routine. Prefers it, actually, when nothing else remains.  
  
A few locum shifts at the surgery eventually turn into more regular work as soon as Sarah is able to put him on the permanent rotation. Four days a week he rises before the sky begins to brighten with the impending dawn, laces up his running shoes, and puts in a solid six to seven miles. He finds he rather enjoys the hushed serenity of the pre-dawn hours, the dove grey sky gently nudging aside the bruised blue of night. There’s a distinct quiet to the streets that doesn’t exist during the daylight hours, only occasionally interrupted by the mechanic whir of a CCTV camera. It’s like the quiet murmurs of a crowd at a concert in the moment between the lights dimming and the orchestra swelling. The air tastes like anticipation.  
  
The sun’s just beginning to crest over the familiar rooftops by the time he returns to the flat, leaving John enough time for a shower and a quick breakfast of tea and toast before heading to the surgery.  
  
The workdays are long, but surprisingly satisfying. It’s odd at first, interacting with people again, reminding himself to smile and nod and generally appear cheerful. But there’s a certain anonymity to work at the surgery that suits. He isn’t John Watson, Blogger of Sherlock Holmes, mourner. He’s Doctor Watson, tired GP. 

His shifts are one patient after another, leaving John with very little downtime, which suits him to the ground. Autumn’s approach means a steady influx of people suffering from allergies and early colds, and school children beset with the inevitable classroom-related illnesses. He’s able to sneak in a quick lunch in the communal kitchen area, which is really just a small room at the back of the building with a fridge, microwave, and a table with chairs. Often, a few other doctors or nurses will dine with him; when Sarah’s there, she takes particular pains to keep the conversations light. He smiles and nods, participates, and even laughs on rare occasions. Most days he ends up staying past closing to finish his charts.  
  
He picks up takeaway on the way back to Baker Street, and at the top of the stairs of 221B, he always finds himself pausing for just a moment. It’s nothing more than the length of a single breath, pure muscle memory from which he can’t fully divorce himself. His ears strain to hear the clink of glass beakers or a few bars of Dvorák, the vibrations like a caress across his skin. It’s as though his body is unable to completely abandon hope, a ridiculous hope that one evening he'll walk in and find Sherlock draped sullenly across the sofa, demanding that John hand him a pen off the desk three feet away. Soft, dark curls framing his pale face.  
  
Standing in the doorway, takeaway in his hands, John's fingers practically twitch as the image flickers through his brain.  
  
Hope.  
  
 _"Hope" is the thing with feathers_. Harry was obsessed with the poet who wrote that when they were teenagers, and now that particular line is like a splinter in his mind. He never really understood what it meant until now, standing in the doorway, a flutter, like wings beating against his ribs, and this itchy-fingered moment before hope rustles its feathers, and flies away. No more than a blink, and it’s gone, swallowed by the empty vacuum of silent rooms and darkness.  
  
John closes and locks the door behind him, hangs up his coat, and sits in front of the telly with his dinner. In this way, he passes a mindless hour or two before tossing the empty takeaway cartons in the bin and heading to bed, his body heavy with the kind of exhaustion that makes sleep a welcome and foregone conclusion.  
  
Those days are almost enough to make him feel normal. Or at least the type of normal that other people expect of him now that three months have passed since his best friend committed suicide. The kind of normal where he doesn’t spend the other three days of the week unsuccessfully searching for a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Curling his body tight around the pillows and bedclothes in Sherlock's bedroom, desperately grasping for . . . something. Or wandering aimlessly about the flat, sometimes spending hours just sitting on the sofa, staring.  
  
Those three days are little more than an endless succession of thoughts and fantasies filed under “Things John Watson Doesn’t Want to Think About. 

Because he really doesn’t want to think about Sherlock's beautiful dark curls, his sharp cheekbones carved out of the pale, smooth planes of porcelain white skin, and his perfect bow mouth.  
  
But he does.  
  
He tries not to think about the intensity of his eyes, bright grey-green as he unraveled the threads of a case, or the shockingly genuine smile he would turn on John, only John, every so often, disarming him faster than any of his elaborate lies ever could.  
  
But he does.  
  
His mind rings with heavy breathing and echoing laughter in the night air and smiles and, god, those ridiculous, perfect fucking curls, and what they would feel like slipping through his fingers. And what he would do if Sherlock walked through the door now. Punch him. Scream at him. Push him against the wall, bury his fingers in his hair, and tell him, without words, all the things he wishes he'd said when he was still alive. When there was time, so much goddamn time that they’ll never have again.  
  
He doesn’t want to. But, god, yes, he does.  
             
Those are the days Mrs. Hudson still brings him food, and has the good grace not to say anything if she hears his sobs coming from Sherlock's bedroom. They’re days that feel endless, where John sometimes does nothing more than watch the long shadows stretch and curve across the white ceiling of Sherlock's bedroom. Morning to dusk. Days when he falls into a black pit of 'what ifs,' allowing himself to succumb to these rambling thoughts and insane fantasies. 

Luckily for John, or perhaps by design, it’s not one of those days when he returns home early to Baker Street, after an unusually slow afternoon at the surgery, to find Mycroft Holmes in his sitting room. Mycroft has had the good sense to sit on the sofa, and not in Sherlock’s chair, for which John is indescribably grateful. He’s not sure he would have had the energy for that fight.  
  
John’s caught in the doorway, fists clenched at his side for a few moments before he hangs up his coat and walks into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He doesn’t bother to ask Mycroft if he'd like one, is too sick with a rush of anger to get the words out. Instead, he makes a second cup (no milk, two sugars) and hands it to the other man before crossing back to his chair and sitting down, needing the distance and steady reassurance of the hot ceramic mug in his hand.  
  
"Thank you," Mycroft says, and John’s surprised at how not enraged he feels at hearing the other man’s voice.  
  
They sip their tea in silence for a few moments and John appreciates the opportunity to observe Mycroft in a way that he’d been incapable of doing the last two times he'd visited. There’s the three-piece suit, of course, pressed into sharp, perfect creases of charcoal grey wool. His shirt and tie are in complimenting shades of blue, and his hair, while as tamed with product as it’s ever been, contains a few more wisps of grey at the temples than John recalls seeing before.  
  
It’s Mycroft’s face though, carefully arranged in a familiar neutral expression, which gives John pause. The lines between his brows have deepened, as if they’ve been carved into his parchment pale skin. His eyes are tired, and overall, there’s a weariness to his appearance that John knows cannot be faked nor hidden. He sees it in his own reflection each time he looks in the mirror.  
  
Seemingly despite his better judgment, John feels his heart soften ever-so-slightly toward Mycroft Holmes, whose little brother is dead. This only deepens his aggravation. Because it’s incredibly difficult to hate someone who is visibly grieving. Damn it. The man is still insufferable, and John doesn’t think he can ever truly forgive him for the role he played in Sherlock's death. In spite of this, even he can see the toll it’s taken on him. He inclines his head in a small nod at Mycroft's thanks.  
  
They finish their tea in silence.  
  
"What can I do for you, Mycroft?" John finally asks once he’s put his empty teacup down on the table.  
  
"Can't I just be paying a social call?" Mycroft replies, his voice even and haughty, comfortably slipping into the old routine.  
  
John quirks his lips, both happy and achingly sad at the familiarity of this exchange.  
  
"I don't know—can you?"  
  
There’s a moment where John swears he sees a look of relief spread across Mycroft's features at the terrible joke. But it’s so brief, he's not entirely sure he didn’t imagine it.

"Yes, indeed," he answers, a suffering smile spread across his lips. "The reason for my visit is to drop off these."  
  
He produces an envelope from his interior jacket pocket, and John feels enough of his old curiosity surge through his veins to propel him to his feet. He crosses the sitting room and takes the envelope from Mycroft, only briefly terrified that it might contain some dreadful 'last will and testament' document from Sherlock. John quickly concludes, though, that Mycroft may be a lot of things, but lacking in tact isn’t one of them.  
  
Inside the envelope is, in fact, a registration letter and several informational documents. At first he thinks that Mycroft has perhaps signed him up for grief therapy intervention or something equally _sentimental_ , but even that seems a bit too emotionally invested to be to Mycroft's tastes.  
  
"Half-Marathon?" he reads off the letter, feeling a bit thick all of the sudden.  
  
"Yes, it's for the Royal Parks Foundation," Mycroft replies. "Technically, though you'll be racing for Cancer Research UK. Apparently these sort of events fill up quite quickly, so the only way to get you into the race was through a charity team."  
  
John almost laughs; the disbelieving tone in Mycroft’s voice suggests that he can’t begin to fathom why anyone would elect to participate in such an activity. Yet here he is in his three-piece suit and Brigg’s umbrella, apparently having donated a sum of money in order to secure John a spot in this race.  
  
"I . . . I don't understand," John stammers, almost speechless. Mycroft shifts, looking distinctly uncomfortable.  
  
"The running. It seems to be . . . beneficial. For you."  
  
John's mind immediately trips upon images of those three days a week when he doesn't run. Days where he lies in bed for hours, unable to climb out of the dark pit of his own regrets. He thinks of the tears and the fantasies that fill him with such shame and longing.  
  
But then he remembers last week, sitting in the surgery lounge with Sarah laughing as one of the nurses at the surgery, Martin, told an absolutely ridiculous story from his university days. He’d laughed so hard that his sides had hurt and tears had streamed down his face. He hadn’t laughed like that in months.  
  
He thinks of the tranquility of his early morning runs, the streets filled with quiet anticipation of the day to come. He sees the same shopkeepers opening their stores each day, the earliest of the commuting crowd lined up at bus stops, rushing in and out of coffee shops and cafes, still trying to shake off the last lingering traces of sleep. He thinks of the bone-deep exhaustion and satisfaction during that blissful moment at the end of a long run, when he finally stands still, his mind quiet. He can feel the heat and energy radiating from his limbs, his blood throbbing through his veins, his whole body so brilliantly and undeniably alive.  
  
A surge of gratitude rushes through him at the sentiment behind Mycroft’s gesture, and he clutches the envelope to his chest like a cherished object. The whispered ‘thank you’ almost feels like forgiveness as well.  
  
Other than a brief narrowing of his eyes, Mycroft doesn’t betray a thing, and after a simple 'best of luck,' he stands and exits the flat.  
  
*  
  
An hour later, he receives a text from Greg Lestrade, inviting him out for a drink. He’s vaguely surprised. They’ve seen each other a few times over the previous months for a drink or two down the pub, but it feels a bit odd to visit with two people from his ‘old life’ (as he’s come to think of it) in one day.  
  
John grabs his coat and within fifteen minutes is seated at the bar of the Three Garridebs, a local halfway between Baker Street and the Yard. Greg’s sipping a whiskey, instead of his usual pint of lager—not a great sign.  
  
“Rough week?” John prompts.  
  
“Shite. Chief Inspector’s still riding our arses over the case reviews.” He stops, his face slackening when he sees John’s hand twitch. “God. Fuck me. Sorry, I didn’t think.”  
  
“Ta. But it’s good though, right? At least they’re doing them.”  
  
“Yeah,” Greg nods, though he doesn’t look particularly pleased. “And of course they’re all coming up clean, which is making everyone tetchy as fuck.” John gives him a questioning glance. “Makes the Yard look like shite if Sherlock went and . . . well, if he did it for nothing.”  
  
“As opposed to if he really were a fake, then it’d be just fine.” John adds bitterly, tracing his finger through a ring of condensation on the bar.  
  
“Exactly,” Greg says, his voice flat. He takes another long sip of his drink. “Add to that the fact that I walked into an empty office today to find Donovan sobbing, and I’m really glad it’s Friday.”  
  
John tries, truly he does, but he can’t quite suppress the surge of _schadenfreude_ at the image of Sally suffering a bit. The rational part of him knows that Donovan and Anderson were only doing their jobs, and it wasn’t as though Sherlock had ever made an effort to endear himself toward either of them. But then he recalls the barely-suppressed satisfaction on Donovan’s face when they came to arrest Sherlock at Baker Street or the hostility in her voice when she called him a ‘freak’ at crime scenes, and he just can’t muster any pity.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Greg says, as if reading John’s thoughts. “Not that I don’t think she deserves it a bit too, mind, but you also don’t have to work with her on a daily basis.”  
  
“True,” John agrees, lifting his glass. Thank god for small mercies.  
  
A comfortable silence settles between them for a minute, and John’s second pint is placed in front of him. 

“And you?” Greg prompts, sensing the need for a change of topic. “I haven’t seen you in a month or so. You don’t look too bad, mate.”  
  
John cracks a bit of a smile at that.  
  
“I’m in probably the best shape I’ve been in since the army,” he admits, still a bit wonderingly. “It’s amazing what depression can do for a person. Barely any appetite and a running routine will really take off the pounds.” His voice isn’t exactly bitter, but there’s definitely an edge to it. He can see in Greg’s face that he hears it too.  
  
“No one can imagine what it’s been like for you, John,” Greg says, his voice low and honest. There’s a sort of rawness to it that reminds John how much Greg had cared about Sherlock too. How he had looked out for him. John nods.  
  
“Yes, well, I just can’t escape the Holmeses. Apparently all my running has caught the eye of the ever-interfering Mycroft Holmes.” 

And maybe John picked up more from Sherlock than he ever realized, because he can swear that he sees a slight quirk to Greg’s lips at Mycroft’s name, and—  
  
There! Greg shifts his eyes down, then to his right. It’s so quick, most people might have missed it, but John doesn’t.  
  
“What’s Mycroft care?” Greg asks with a casual tone that sounds slightly forced to John’s ears. Something is going on, something John can’t quite puzzle out, but he is fairly certain now that Greg is lying to him. Lying about Mycroft of all people. A stab of longing goes through him as his treacherous mind whispers, _Sherlock would know_.  
  
“He’s gone and registered me for a half-marathon. Takes place in a few weeks,” John says placidly, trying to look for hints of what’s going on. He takes a sip from his beer and watches Greg do a fairly good impression of someone who’s hearing this news for the first time, his face cycling through appropriate levels of surprise and interest in turn.  
  
John clenches his fists; he’s aggravated now, especially since he’d like to have an honest conversation about how nervous he is at the prospect of this race. He can’t do that if Greg is hiding something, and he’s focused on ferreting out what that something is. His patience snaps.  
  
“Right, seriously, what’s going on?” John says suddenly, setting his glass back on the bar a bit too loudly. A few other patrons glance toward them.  
  
“What? What are you talking about?” Greg stammers, making John want to groan and roll his eyes. He feels like bloody Sherlock—is this how the other man had felt all the time, dealing with this sort of idiocy?  
  
“I’m talking about the fact that you quite obviously know something about all this and you’re rubbish at lying.” Greg continues his impression of bafflement. John huffs. “Really? Fine. The second I mentioned Mycroft’s name I saw you shift in your seat not once, but twice, clearly you’re uncomfortable with something. You also shifted your eyes to the right as soon as his name came up, a common tell of lying. Add to that the fact that your left ring finger has been tapping against your glass for the past minute, and all signs point to your being nervous about something, specifically related to Mycroft Holmes, and it has to do with lying to me.”  
  
Greg is looking at John, expression slightly agog and lips parted, by the end of his speech.  
  
“Christ, John,” he says after blinking. “Sherlock seriously underestimated you.”  
  
John huffs a laugh and ignores the stab of pain which grips tightly at his gut.  
  
“Yeah, sort of the least of Sherlock’s mistakes, though, right?” he mutters loudly enough to be heard.  
  
Greg winces, drags a hand across his face, and stares into his glass for a moment as if gathering courage.  
  
“The half-marathon thing? I sort of already knew about it,” Greg admits without making eye contact.  
  
“OK. How exactly did you know about it?”  
  
“Mycroft told me he was planning to register you,” Greg answers, still looking down at the bar.  
  
“Hang on, when would . . . “ John trails off. Because he’d gone with Sherlock on more than enough interrogations—usually trying to run interference between the witness and Sherlock’s own callous disregard for the rules of social propriety—to recognize not only when someone is hiding something, but when they’re hiding something specifically related to their romantic or sexual history. The clues are consistent, and generally pretty obvious, even to John. It’s not too difficult to deduce once you learn what to look for.  
  
“Holy fuck.” It comes out as more of a statement than an exclamation. John’s never imagined Greg was the type of bloke to blush, but he sees a distinct redness blooming up from under the detective’s collar. “Ruddy fuck. You . . . you and _Mycroft_? Mycroft Holmes?”  
  
“Shut up,” Greg replies, his voice slightly strained with what sounds like either embarrassment or aggravation. John can’t figure out which it is. Can’t really string together a coherent thought, actually, outside of astonishment. Just mind-halting astonishment. It’s a full minute before he can formulate a question, and even then, it’s just one word.  
  
“How?”  
  
Greg fiddles with a napkin on the bar.  
  
“We’ve known each other for a while now. Ever since I first met Sherlock, and that was over six years ago. Crazy bugger. Did I ever tell you that story?” His voice is quiet, tinged with a sort of fondness that pulls John from the swirling eddy of his surprise. He shakes his head when Greg looks up at him. All this time and he’s never actually heard the story of how Greg first met Sherlock Holmes. It seems odd now that he thinks of it.  
  
“Was out at a crime scene down in Lewisham. Fairly brutal murder. Body found early in the morning, no witnesses, no murder weapon. We were all sort of standing around, scratching our heads when this tall, dark figure came sweeping in, making all sorts of pronouncements and deductions in his posh, condescending tone. Only he was clearly high as a fucking kite, babbling, insulting everyone, and barely making any sense most of the time. Except, when I waded through all the bullshit, he had pointed out quite a number of things that our people had managed to miss entirely. Of course, by the time I realized this and got forensics to take a second look, he’d swanned off to god knows where, and I—out of my mind, I must have been—decided it was best to follow him. Strung out and with a mouth like that, I couldn’t imagine him not getting the shit kicked out of him eventually.”  
  
John chuckles a bit and realizes that there’s dampness at the corners of his eyes. The picture Greg paints is so painfully _Sherlock_ that John can barely breathe through how much he misses the man. The near-constant ache to which he’s grown accustomed unfurls in his chest and stomach at the thought of a younger Sherlock, strung out on cocaine, and walking into a crime scene in order to inform the police—the bloody police—that they’re idiots.    
  
Greg smiles at the memory. “Took me about an hour to find him. Arguing with a postman about the organization of postcodes and the most effective route for his daily deliveries.” Greg laughs, loud and genuine. “The bloke looked as if he were about thirty seconds away from punching Sherlock in the face. I intervened and hauled him into the station, convinced myself it was for his own good, and locked him up in a holding cell. Mycroft came to fetch him a little bit later.” Greg smiles again, but this one’s softer, more affectionate. “Came in his three-piece suit, waving about his credentials. I remember he was wearing a purple tie. Funny that, how clear I remember that bloody tie.” Greg laughs at this, and John feels the persistent ache grow stronger, twisting in a way that’s oddly familiar and a little bit frightening. “I barely knew what had hit me, but ten minutes later, not only was Sherlock free to go, but I’d somehow agreed to let him take a look at a few of our cold cases if he got clean.  
  
“Mycroft and I have stayed in touch on and off ever since. Hard to avoid when dealing with Sherlock. But it wasn’t until . . . well, it wasn’t until back in June that things . . . evolved.”  
  
John sits silent for a few moments, his brain awash in new information, feeling as though he can’t quite process it all fast enough. Suddenly, he blurts out the first thought floats to the top.  
  
“I’d no idea you were even gay.”  
  
He immediately groans and looks up at Greg apologetically. It’s certainly not the most sensitive thing he could have said, but honestly, it’s the largest piece of the story that’s been niggling, like a splinter, in the back of his mind since he connected the dots. 

He doesn’t have a problem with homosexuality, far from it—he’d meant what he’d said to Sherlock years ago. It’s all fine. When Harry’d come out all those years ago, he’d felt nothing but relief and pride that she was finally being honest with herself. He’d also been in the army—had experienced first-hand what adrenaline, isolation, and sheer terror can do to men, the connections two people can make under the most dire of circumstances. When nothing matters but the warm reassurance that life persists that another person, man or woman, can offer. He’s even found himself attracted to the occasional bloke outside of wartime, though he’s never acted on those feelings. It’s really all fine.  
  
But Greg had been married, has always talked about women he’s dated or pulled. There’s never been the slightest hint he might fancy men as well, let alone men like Mycroft.  
  
Greg’s chuckle is good humored.  
  
“Yeah, funny that. I’m not really, or never thought I was, at least not all the way. There was a time or two at uni, you know, nothing major.” Greg blushes again and sighs. “I mean, there’s just something about him. It’s all sort of . . . different for him. It’s sort of like, what I feel for him, it doesn’t matter that he’s a bloke. It’s just _him_.”  
  
Greg’s voice has taken on this soft, sort of wondering tone, and John feels the growing ache in his chest turn hot and angry. He feels it scorch a raw path down into his gut, and it’s a moment before he recognizes the terrifying, familiar feeling for what it is: jealousy. He’s jealous of Greg and Mycroft. And despite the distant whisper in the back of his mind that says differently, tickling at the edge of his thoughts, he’s not fully sure why.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of running my first half-marathon tomorrow, I'm finally posting this long-overdue chapter. Now full of more angsty goodness.

**Part III**  
  
John wakes up on the first day of October with a blistering hangover. Not a great way to start the month, but he’s at least thankful that he had the foresight to go out drinking with Greg yesterday evening when he doesn’t have to get up for a training run this morning. It had been just over a week since they’d last gotten together, the night of Greg’s revelation about him and Mycroft, and John had felt a renewed interest in being a bit social. Or at least as social as meeting an old friend for a few too many drinks, while sitting together in the corner of a pub, could be deemed. Considering the past few months, for John, it was practically a party.  
  
All things considered, it had been a fairly tame evening. They’d watched a repeat match on the telly above the bar, drank too many pints, and in exchange for sharing some of his more absurd cases at the surgery, Greg recounted a few particularly hilarious anecdotes from the Yard. It had been friendly, and quiet, and just what he needed.   
  
John blinks away the gritty feeling from his eyes. The bedroom is still shrouded in the blue greys of early morning; Sherlock’s bedroom being at the back of the flat means that it doesn’t receive a lot of light this time of day. It’s something for which he’s extremely grateful this particular morning. Groaning, John rolls over in the bed until he’s able to use the forward momentum of his body weight to propel himself upright, not enjoying the accompanying head-rush and nausea. He’s just about to stumble to the toilet for a piss and some water when his mobile buzzes from the nightstand.  
  
 **Greg Lestrade**

**Dying. Never drinking again. Fairly certain I’m still pissed.**

John smiles and types out a quick response.  
  
 **Agreed. JW**  
  
 **Same time next week? JW**  
  
There’s a long enough pause that he feels he can escape to the toilet, and by the time he returns, the face of his mobile is lit up with a message.  
  
 **Greg Lestrade**

**Yeah. Mycroft says we’re idiots. Actually, said 'our behavior was positively juvenile.’ Git.**  
  
Despite everything, John can’t help but chuckle a bit at that. His head throbs in retaliation.  
  
 **Tell Mycroft to bugger off. JW**  
  
John slips his mobile into the pocket of his pajama bottoms and shuffles down the hall to the kitchen for a desperately needed cup of tea, all the time trying to avoid the natural turn of his thoughts toward Greg and Mycroft. Greg and Mycroft sleeping together, sharing stories, and laughing over breakfast. Sharing the sort of casual intimacy that John's always longed for.  
  
The flat is silent save for the sound of his bare feet on the kitchen floor. It’s not just silent, though; the rooms are filled with a sort of ringing emptiness that John has become increasingly aware of over the past few months. Not all the time, of course. Most of the time, he's able to tune it out, busy himself with some activity, but every so often, in quiet moments like these, it will strike him. 

His grip on his mug tightens as he stares at the tiled backsplash behind the sink, the overwhelming awareness of _nothing_ washing over him. Before . . . before there had always been _something_ , even when Sherlock was on one of his rare bents where he didn’t speak for days. Even then, there was the howls of the violin or the clink of Erlenmeyer flasks or specimen slides. He shakes his head and fills the kettle from the faucet before flipping it on, allowing the silence to be broken by the susurrations of the water as it heats.  
  
He turns and stares around at the empty kitchen, everything orderly and hatefully clean. He’s amazed at how much he had longed for Sherlock to pick up after himself a bit, where now the neat, organized surfaces make him anxious, almost sick. He wonders if Greg and Mycroft's place is this clean. He’s always imagined Mycroft as the opposite of Sherlock: a place for everything and everything in its place. That sort. He wonders how Greg fits into that, and then shakes his head again, as if he could joggle the thoughts right out of his skull like a pebble from a shoe.  
  
It’s been a week since John’s ferreted out Greg’s relationship with Sherlock’s older brother, and he’s still struggling with a lingering uneasiness that simply won’t go away. It churns in his stomach, this disquiet, whenever his thoughts turn in that direction.  
  
His initial suspicion had been that knowing about their relationship is just a bit too close to thinking about Mycroft Holmes actually engaging in sex. Which is just wrong. And so, so . . . nope. Just wrong. Add to that the fact that he’s personally acquainted with the person with whom Mycroft is having . . . Nope. Still just wrong.  
  
The problem, though, is that John suspects there’s more to it than that. Actually, he knows it’s something more. That first night, when Greg had blushingly come clean, it hadn’t been thoughts of Greg shagging Sherlock’s brother that had upset him. It was the burning, aptly identified, jealousy roiling through his gut. Even after the conversation had turned back toward his upcoming race, he’d continued to feel sick with hot, churning jealousy.  
  
 _But jealousy over what?_  
  
That question continues to thrum quietly in the back of his mind, a near constant whisper, as the kettle clicks off. He quickly makes a cup of tea and settles onto one of the kitchen stools, a medical journal he’s been meaning to look over on the worktop beside his tea. He knows people at the surgery who are in happy functioning relationships, has actually heard from Harry that she and Clara might be reconciling. No jealousy there. And, of course, Greg’s gone on loads of dates, was even still married when they’d first met, and John’s never cared about any of it before. It has to be because of Mycroft.  
  
Because Mycroft Holmes doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t do _sentiment_. Neither of the Holmes brothers do.  
  
Did. Neither of them _did_.  
  
 _Not really their area_ , his mind whispers cruelly, digging up an old memory of the first evening he and Sherlock spent together, Sherlock just this mad enigma sitting across from him at Angelo’s. All hair and hands and that soul-igniting gleam in his eyes. 

John stares hard at the page before him, not seeing a single word, as the still-sharp edge of pain and longing slices through him.  
  
What was it that Sherlock had once said, in that disturbingly cold and casual way of his? Something Mycroft had drilled into his head all throughout his childhood.  
  
 _Caring is not an advantage, John_.  
  
He remembers it was a month or so after Irene Adler’s death—the first time. The two of them had been spending a relatively quiet evening at Baker Street—John attempting to fashion a blog post out of a jumble of notes from a two month-old case, and Sherlock torturing his violin by means of a Bach sonata that he bloody well knew was one of John’s favorites, seemingly because he could. Sherlock’s heightened introversion had not much improved over the passing weeks since Christmas, and John felt as though he was going a bit spare from dealing with the non-stop assault that was Sherlock's Olympic-level sulk. The most frustrating bit being that he wasn’t sure if Sherlock’s mood was the result of boredom and general unpleasantness, or of grief. Much as he had done the evening Sherlock had returned from identifying Irene’s body, John’s taken to checking in with him every so often, despite his attempts being continually met with the detective’s blade-sharp derision.  
  
Sherlock's playing had grown almost manic, his movements near violent as he pulled and thrust the bow across the instrument, making John increasingly anxious. Finally, he sawed through a particularly energetic movement, and, at its conclusion, suddenly dropped his arms to his sides, the bow and instrument held in white-knuckled grips, as if he could no longer support their weight. John could see the quick rise and fall of his chest as he stared blankly into the dark of Baker Street beyond the windowpane.  
  
“Alright?” John had asked, unable to ignore behavior that was unusual even within the realms of Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock had whipped around, as though just realizing John was in the room, which wasn’t in itself particularly shocking, though it happened less frequently than it had done at first. But his face this evening had a wild and strangely fierce expression; the orange light from the fire flickered in his eyes and gave his pale skin a surreal, almost luminescent glow. He’d looked otherworldly.  
  
“Yes, of course. Why do you insist on constantly repeating that question?” he’d practically spat at him.  
  
“You just seem . . . I mean,” John had floundered momentarily before taking a deep breath. “It’s alright, to be sad, you know. It’s fine to care that she’s . . . dead, to _feel_ that.” John finished, his voice trailing off lamely toward the end.  
  
Sherlock, while John had been speaking, replaced his violin in its case and stored the bow, seemingly not listening to a word he said. By the time John had finished, he’d sat in his chair, his blank attention turned toward the fire, his face practically golden with the proximity. The warm light had somehow made his facial features seem softer, less severe, and had illuminated the dark shadows of his hair with glimmering, reddish tints. Without warning, a question flashed through John's mind: _Does he love her?_ It had caused a swooping sensation in his abdomen that he'd not quite experienced before. Or, he had; he’d just never experienced it in relation to Sherlock.  
  
“Caring is not an advantage, John,” Sherlock suddenly intoned in a voice devoid of emotion, more revealed by what he wasn't saying than what he was  
  
John's heart, even then, in the warm light of Baker Street, had raced at those words.  
  
Because he’d known then, and he knows now that Sherlock cared about things. He’d cared about Mrs. Hudson, and about Irene Adler (however completely twisted that had been). He believes this to his very core. John had listened to Sherlock's self-diagnosed tripe about being a “high-functioning sociopath,” and wondered if the detective had some sort of mental blind spot for the fact that John trained as a doctor. That medical school requirements cover psychology and psychiatry courses, including diagnosis and the basics of initial treatment options. Sherlock had certainly been rude, and manipulative, and far, far too clever for his own good at times. But he had been a long way from lacking an ability to feel, to empathize.  
  
John perfectly recalls the look on Sherlock’s face that night at the pool, when he’d first stepped onto the deck into Sherlock’s line of sight. The betrayal and flashing, bright hurt in his eyes, replaced by fear once John had peeled back the coat to reveal the pounds of semtex strapped to his chest. He remembers the way Sherlock’s fingers had trembled as he stripped the coat from him and flung it as far away as he could, almost blind with panic. Not exactly the actions of someone unable to feel, to care.  
  
Still, John’s never forgotten the words he whispered in front of the fire that night, their coldness and the easy conviction behind them. He’s never truly forgotten that the Holmes’ brothers view intimacy as a weakness, a failing, and they certainly don’t do romantic entanglements. The closest thing John had ever seen to Sherlock experiencing something like attraction had been with bloody Irene Adler, and that had only seemed to confirm all Sherlock’s twisted assumptions about love and caring. 

The Holmes brothers don’t care. Except when they do, finally proving what John’s always suspected: it’s all complete bullshit. The pretty theories only extend as far as personal preference, and once that’s been compromised, everything else, it appears, is forfeit.  
  
Because here’s Mycroft Holmes, practically living with Greg, and for all their posturing and bloody ridiculous principles and practices, it turns out one of the Holmes brothers is susceptible to the same disadvantages as the rest of the population: love. Caring. And John can’t help but wonder at how Sherlock’s precise and calculated worldview would have been slightly thrown akilter had he been here to witness this. Would he have re-evaluated his stance? Would he have put his considerable skills to use in observing Mycroft and Greg, in deducing their obvious happiness. Would he, perhaps, have shifted his own beliefs system to accommodate this new data?  
  
John’s mind flashes back to Greg’s face at the bar last night, flushed with drink and happiness when he admitted that Mycroft had told him he loved him two days ago. He'd looked like he could fly; he was radiant with it, and John was quite genuinely pleased for them, but even still, the familiar burn of jealousy crackled, threatening to consume him.  
  
“Fuck,” he growls, jerking the long-since-forgotten medical journal closed and accidentally knocking a few lingering pieces of post off the table. There’s a fast rush of fluttering noise as the papers rustle to the ground, before the flat plunges back into silence.  
  
He stares at the wall, hears Sherlock’s voice in his head.  
  
 _Caring is not an advantage, John_.  
  
 _Alone protects me._  
  
 _Not really my area_.  
  
The last one drives him from his seat so quickly that he’s not even sure why he’s standing. He’s breathing rapidly, his hands resting on his hips, spine curved to take in more air. It’s as though the fast flying thoughts in his skull are actually prohibiting his brain’s ability to process oxygen. He feels like he's going slightly mad.  
  
He crosses quickly into the sitting room, and forces himself to lie down on the couch, facing the window, digging his bare toes under one of the cold cushions. The air still feels thin, but he focuses on the steady rhythm of inhale and exhale until the panic ebbs.  
  
What the hell is wrong with him? What does it matter if Greg and Mycroft are happy? That Sherlock isn’t here to see it? They’re odd and not at all alike, and Mycroft’s as cold and as distant as Sherlock, maybe even more so, and they’re making it work. That should be great, he should be happy for his friend. But instead he feels even more alone, like he’s somehow lost just a little bit more of himself to these fucked up and impossible months.  
  
He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths. His head is beginning to throb just a bit, the pain of the hangover not totally subdued by the paracetamol. His thoughts are a jumble of Mycroft, and Greg, and Sherlock. Always Sherlock. Hiding behind the waiting dark of John's eyelids. Sherlock grinning at him from across the table that first night at Angelo's, joking with him in the back of a cab while leaving a crime scene. Reading crime reports to him over the breakfast table, laughing and critical and snarky over Bond movies and episodes of Doctor Who. The two of them, sharing their lives, so different, but somehow making it work.  
  
John's eyes snap open.  
  
"Oh my god," he whispers into the quiet room. Oh my . . . fuck. Fuck. Oh buggering fuck.  
  
He and Sherlock were Mycroft and Greg. Only without the romantic relationship, the kissing, the . . . . 

His thoughts grind to a halt, and suddenly he’s back sitting across from Sherlock on that January evening, the other man’s luminescent skin in the firelight, and remembering his own appreciation of it. Followed by the question that had flashed through his mind: _Does he love her?_ And the secret buried so deeply that he could scarcely admit it, even to himself. 

Because his mind had asked that question and his heart had responded in a barely audible whisper, _Please, god, no._  
  
"Oh god," he repeats, burying his face in his hands. Because, oh god, Oh. God. How had he missed this? He'd barely allowed himself to even think that thought at the time. But it had been there, months and months ago. It had been there: a desperate plea that Sherlock not be in love with that horrible woman. Because John couldn't stand the thought of Sherlock's heart, more fragile than he'd ever understand, in her careless hands. In hands that weren’t his own.  
  
And when he'd seen her weeks later, in an abandoned warehouse, he recalls the way his stomach had dropped. Irene Adler, standing there in her black dress, beautiful, clever, and more cunning than John could ever be. Perfectly matched against Sherlock's ethereal beauty and staggering intelligence. _Please, god, no._ She had spoken to him, her words careful, manipulative, and John knew, he bloody knew, he would die before he let Sherlock go on mourning that woman if he could put an end to it. He said as much, and Irene Adler—Irene fucking Adler—had looked right through his precision-constructed exterior, his careful and persistent layers of denial, into his core, and had seen the truth. She had smiled a small, triumphant smile at him, at a truth that even he couldn't see at the time.  
  
 _We're not a couple._  
  
 _Yes, you are._  
  
Because she had seen it in his fierce loyalty, in his emotional attachment, and blatant jealousy. In his refusal to let Sherlock suffer, even if it meant handing his beautiful, breakable heart over to her. In his, yes, purposeful avoidance of Sherlock's nose and mouth—that ridiculously beautiful mouth that could speak such heaven and such hell, often in the same breath. A mouth that has occupied too many of his more recent thoughts while locked in the darkness of Sherlock's bed. There he can rationalize these fantasies away as grief made manifest, born of his desire to be close to Sherlock, to be alive with him, what have you. He can excuse it with the familiar lines— _I’m not gay; we aren’t like that_ —lines that are scarred on his heart, so often has he repeated them.  
  
But it's more than that—oh god—and it was there long before Sherlock's death. It's as though he's been crawling around in the dark, desperately searching for something, until he finally stood up, and flipped the switch. Because when the room is finally illuminated, standing in the center is Sherlock Holmes, holding John Watson's heart in his elegant fingers, a look on this face that clearly says, _What took you so long?_  
  
John gasps, the dull constant ache of grief he's felt for months swells into something so much larger, bigger than he ever realized. It spreads outwards from his lungs, consuming his stomach, his fingers, his toes, rippling ever further beyond him. It pours from him, spreads across the threadbare rug, saturating the room, washing over the kitchen, crashing in waves through the bedroom. It's silent and gaping and swallowing him up. John rolls onto his side, curling in against the rush as he gasps.  
  
"Stupid, stupid, buggering fuck," his words are broken, just shards of what they should be. "You stupid fucking fuck. I love you. Loved you and you left me, you bastard," he inhales a ragged breath and his eyes fall upon the skull, sitting still and unmoved on the mantel. The knife-secured post he's never bothered to remove, the mixed up books, the chairs facing each other, the desk they shared. Evidence everywhere he looks of a life lived together. A life they shared.  
  
 _We're not a couple._  
  
 _Yes, you are._  
  
"I love you, I love you." The words tumble from his lips again and again, and he realizes how badly his heart's wanted to say this. How many times he'd looked at Sherlock across a crowded crime scene, a restaurant table, the space between two chairs, and said, "Brilliant," when he meant, "I love you." Called him an "idiot" after an experiment exploded in the kitchen, when he should have said, "You're everything to me." Grabbed Moriarty at the pool and told Sherlock to run, when he actually meant, "I would die before I'd let anything happen to you."  
  
"I love you." _Did you know? Did your great brain figure this out?_  
  
 _Sentiment, John_.  
  
"Doesn't matter,” he whispers. “Idiot. I love you."  
  
He lies curled up on the couch, gasping, drowning in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this story has not been abandoned. It's been an especially busy summer, and I've been very remiss in updating, but I hope to post more regularly going forward.

**Part IV**

John has never been more grateful for the solid reassurance of routine than he is in the days following his realization of his feelings for Sherlock. Because despite the emotional cyclone, the swirling vortex of his own thoughts, into which it's so easy to be swept, he is able to wake up in the mornings and rely on the strict schedule of his training plan. John Watson's body responds to routines, and it responds to orders, so when he wakes before dawn and slowly realizes it's a running day, he goes, without question, through the motions of getting out of bed and getting dressed.    
  
Really, though he's eager for any opportunity to get out of Baker Street, for a distraction. Each morning, he wakes up feeling like he's had his insides scraped out with a rusted spoon. Because love on its own is gutting enough without adding on the devastating layer of death and mourning. And regret, of course, a whole load of regret.

After his third panic attack in two days, he finally accepts the reality that he needs help, and makes an appointment with his therapist Ella. Yes, according to Mycroft he should have fired her long ago, but he can’t stomach the idea of having to start over with someone new. Just the thought of going through the galling process of recounting his entire history to a stranger, of trying to describe his life with Sherlock, is utterly terrifying. He’d rather stick with Ella who at least knows all that. Or, at least as much as he had allowed her to know.  
  
Their first meeting occurs a few days after his rather dramatic realization. He hasn't been back to her office since directly following Sherlock’s funeral when Mrs. Hudson, with the help of what he can only assume was one of Mycroft’s henchmen, corralled him into a car and deposited him in the lobby of Ella’s office. He'd spent the majority of the session practically unable to breathe, completely unable to talk through his emotions. Ella had observed him through sympathetic eyes and eventually attempted to explain that everything he was experiencing was perfectly normal. He could barely remember a word she said—none of it could begin to penetrate the thick shell of his grief. He was meant to have gone back on a weekly basis, but just couldn't be bothered to suffer through the sessions. Until now.  
  
“Sherlock is dead. And I’m in love with him,” he pronounces almost immediately after sitting down, before she can even utter a hello. Ella’s professional composure slips momentarily at his startling and unusual forthrightness, and even after she gathers herself together, something in her countenance has changed slightly. Her face seems more open, her posture less stiff.  
  
"That’s quite an enormous shift, John," she replies, and though her voice sounds wary, her smile is genuine. In fact, John realizes that it's the most genuine smile he's ever really seen on her.  
  
"Yeah, well it's been an unusual few months, Ella," he replies, relaxing his own posture slightly and dragging his hands over his face. A slightly hysterical laugh escapes his lips.  
  
Ella's smile become sympathetic. It's then that John understands that she's most likely been waiting months and months for John to realize the depth of his feelings for Sherlock. He's indescribably grateful that she's never pushed it, has waited for him to find this honesty in himself. He's always treated Ella with a great deal of skepticism (and hates to admit that it partially stems from Mycroft's assessment of her skills during their first meeting). But something about this very brief moment finally convinces him that he's been wrong.  
  
They actually go on to have a decent conversation—the best they've ever had, in John's opinion. It doesn’t exactly make John feel better, but she helps him organize his thoughts a bit, which is precisely what he needs. He feels like his sense of himself has been completely torn down, and he’s having to rebuild from the rubble. It doesn’t help that he also feels about two decades too old to be struggling through an identity crises.

The running, though, definitely helps. Ella seems really pleased when he tells her about it, and even though he knows that shouldn’t make him feel a little bit proud, it does. Not that he needs her approval, but it’s nice to know that he’s blindly stumbled upon an effective and healthy means of coping with his grief and anxiety.

There are exactly three weeks until the race at this point, so he doesn't have any room to skimp on training, which, it turns out, is a really great thing, considering his mental state. He is in desperate need of a distraction, and being so close to the race, with no previous training or experience, means he has to marshal all his focus in order to pull this off without seriously injuring or humiliating himself.  
  
The morning after Mycroft dropped off his registration forms, he'd gone online and done a bit of research on training plans and prepping for marathons and half-marathons. The volume of information was a bit staggering and it all seemed to include plans for training that took months to complete. A few hours of wading through various websites and blogs produced something that seemed reasonable. He would bump up his running to four days per week, being careful in the first week not to go too hard. The schedule was a mix of pacing days and speed interval training, coupled with a “Long Run” on Sundays, which seemed, unbeknownst to him, to be the standard of most running routines. The point was to spend one day a week running significantly farther than the other days, in order to build up endurance and start slowly increasing weekly mileage to prepare. As far as he could calculate using an online mapping program, the farthest he'd run so far was around eight miles—certainly an impressive feat, and a good start for training to go a little over thirteen.  
  
So, on a Tuesday morning he cautiously, but fully surrenders himself to the workout, allowing his mind to get lost in the pacing and rhythm. Soon enough, he’s moving steadily through, mile after mile. Trying to let his mind wander aimlessly and not get caught up in the distance or the twinging pain in his knee, or the soreness in the heel of his left foot. Neither are pronounced, but both are just enough that, if he were to let his mind focus in, could irrevocably distract him.

An hour or so later, he's just finished up and is walking the last bit of Regent's Park, back toward Baker Street when he sees a familiar profile—a man in his mid-thirties, bent over tying the laces on one of his shoes.  
  
"All right there, Marty?" John calls out, and the ginger head of Martin Morstan, one of the nurses from the surgery, pops up in his direction.  
  
"Dr. Watson!" he replies, a broad smile spreading across his normally clean-shaven face, gone slightly scruffy with a few days of neglect. He stands up and walks over to meet John. He's wearing a long-sleeved tech shirt and a pair of loose athletic shorts; his running shoes look well-worn. "I didn't know you were a runner."  
  
John huffs a laugh at being described thusly. In his mind, “runners” are people who’ve run loads of races; they’re sleek and tall and well-toned, and look like they've just come from a cover shoot for one of those running magazines. The kind where every athlete is smiling, blissful mid-stride while running up Mt. Everest or something. John looks back at Marty, the pale skin of his face is flushed and he’s grinning, the muscles in his legs are lean and well-defined, if slightly pink from the cold weather. He thinks that of the two of them, Marty is clearly closer to the magazine cover image.  
  
"Please, call me John," he insists. "And I've only been at it for a few months." He means to stop his explanation there, but the attentive expression in Marty's eyes compels him to continue. "I'm actually 'bout to run my first half-marathon, though, in a few weeks."  
  
Marty’s eyes light up in a way that makes John smile.  
  
"The Royal Parks race?" John nods. "That's a great one. Especially for a first time—nice and flat, not too rough on the knees." He grins and points down at his left knee, which looks to be taped up with bright blue kinesiology tape. "I was actually supposed to race in it, but I twisted my knee last week, so I'm laying off for a bit."  
  
"But, you're out here . . . " John prompts.  
  
"Yeah," he laughs lightly and runs his hand through his close-cropped hair, looking a bit embarrassed. But there's a grin on his face, and John thinks that the expression sits well on his features. He can recall seeing it a dozen or more times as they've laughed in the break room over lunch. "Can't quite keep myself away from it—bit of an addict. I took about a week off, but I was itching to get back, even if just for a few miles."  
  
"Yeah," John agrees, smiling. "I'm starting to know that feeling well."  
  
"The longer I do it, it seems the worse it gets," Marty admits. There's a beat of silence and then he asks, "Are you finishing up?"  
  
John glances down at his shoes out of habit, as if looking for an answer. He shakes his head and grins.  
  
"Yeah, just. Was about to head back to my flat," he replies, gesturing in the direction of Baker Street.  
  
"Right, I remember Dr. Sawyer mentioning you live 'round here. Don't suppose you'd fancy grabbing breakfast? I can't eat much before I run, but I'm usually famished by the time I'm finished."  
  
John has to suppress his immediate response to decline the invitation. Months spent in relative seclusion have left him operating on solitude auto-pilot, it seems. The truth is, he quite likes Marty, and the few conversations he’s had with him have never felt awkward or forced. Granted, they've not spent any time outside of work chatting, but there's an open ease to his personality that John responds to and finds comforting. And Greg was just saying last night that he needs to make more friends.  
  
"Yeah, that'd be great," he replies, smiling.  
  
John lets Marty lead the way, and they talk a bit more about Marty's knee injury as they turn and walk from Regent's Park, crossing over a few streets, until they're sat in a small cafe on Gower Street. It's a wonderfully non-pretentious sort of place with Formica tabletops and paper napkin dispensers. John grins.  
  
"You look like you have a secret," Marty says and leans conspiratorially toward him with a laugh.  
  
"No, it's just rare to find places like this in the area—cheap and cheerful, my mum used to call them. It's nice."  
  
"Yeah, I'm fairly keen on avoiding tablecloths if at all possible," Marty replies, grinning. "There's another good place a few streets over, Speedy's, I think it's called."  
  
"On Baker Street," John supplies. "Yeah, I live right above it. They do an amazing banoffee pie. If you’re for that sort of thing."  
  
“I consider pie to be it’s own food group,” Marty says solemnly, before a smile breaks across his face, and John finds himself with one to match.

They spend a bit more time comparing notes on some of their favorite eateries in London, and John learns that Marty lives a bit of a ways away, but likes to take the Tube up to Regents Park for shorter runs. He also plays football in an adult league and ukulele in a band he formed a few years ago with some of his mates from uni.  
  
John practically falls off his seat laughing at the image.  
  
"Like the tiny guitar? How did you even . . . is it an all-ukulele band?"  
  
Across from him, Marty is laughing along, clearly used to this sort of reaction.  
  
"No!" he insists in between breaths. "The other guys play drums and guitar and piano. I learned it from an American cousin of mine years ago—he'd grown up in Hawaii."  
  
John is wiping away tears while trying to dispel images of a group of men in grass skirts and coconut bras, just as their food arrives.

Between mouthfuls of eggs and beans, he tells Marty stories of his time in med school at St. Bart’s, a few amusing tales about Harry (Marty has a younger sister who lives in New York), and some of the less gruesome bits of Afghanistan. The conversation is easy—surprisingly so—and even though John knows that Marty talks to Sarah, that he most likely knows about John’s history with Sherlock, the topic, mercifully, never comes up. Even better, it never feels as though Marty’s avoiding it, or treating John carefully—there aren’t any awkward pauses or shifting glances. It’s great, in fact, because everything about their conversation is so completely removed from Sherlock—he feels like he hasn’t had anything this _normal_ in a very long time.

Even the evenings spent with Greg, when Sherlock’s name never comes up, are tainted around the edges with memories of the past. A past in which John Watson was part of “Sherlock and John.” He loved being “Sherlock and John”—misses it with every bone in his weary body—but being just John, right now, eating beans and laughing at a ridiculous joke Marty’s recounting rather badly, feels like a relief. Like finally catching his breath, even if only for a moment.

Eventually, the check comes and they split it between the two of them with slightly sweat-damp pound notes that they’ve both squirreled away in the tiny pockets of their running clothes. John grins when Marty makes a joke about what the server must think of them, and soon they’re standing out on Gower Street, the bustle of morning traffic a steady thrum all around them.

“So, do you feel like you’re ready for the race?” Marty asks.

John sighs and then laughs a bit.

“Not at all,” he admits. “I’ve no clue what the hell I’m doing, to be honest.” He gestures sort of helplessly down the street, toward the traffic and sidewalks and the rest of London. “I mean, I know how to run, I do that most days, but race? That distance? I’ve no clue.”

Marty stares at him thoughtfully for a minute, and there’s a flicker of something, doubt perhaps, behind his eyes, before it’s replaced with a determined stare.

“I could help you,” he says with a serious expression. “I’ve done a few half-marathons and loads of smaller races. Sometimes it really helps to have someone with experience, to help with pacing.”

John stares at him for a minute, again having to suppress the immediate urge to say no. Part of him is embarrassed at the idea of running with Marty, who’s probably far better than he is, but at the same time, he needs the help. Even with the training plan, the truth is that he feels out of his depth, and with everything else going on in his life, he’s desperately in need of a friend.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Actually, that would be brilliant.”

*

Marty offers to join John on all of his pre-race runs to help coach him through speed intervals and pacing exercises, and John, with only slight reluctance, agrees.

The first morning he’s standing outside Baker Street in the hushed darkness of pre-dawn, watching his breath waver and dissolve in the cold air; he can’t quite shake the nervous flutterings of anxiety at the idea of having Marty, a bloke he barely knows, critique him. John’s generally not the type who’s easily intimidated, but running has become something “intensely emotional” for him, as Ella likes to say. In their last session, she talked about how it’s probably the only place where he really allows himself to experience joy and frustration and despair right now; it’s the only outlet he has for everything he’s experienced over the past five months, and the prospect of disrupting that balance, of opening himself up to someone else, is not a little terrifying.

Marty arrives and it’s awkward at first, but he finds that once they’re a mile or so into the run he actually quite enjoys the company. He and Marty get on like a house on fire; the light, easy conversation from the café continues through the run, proving an excellent distraction. It allows him to thoughtlessly surrender to the pace of the run and allow his body to self-adjust into a natural rhythm. In between laughs, Marty offers a few tips, has him slow down and speed up at different points, but other than that, he’s generally supportive and not at all intrusive with his instruction. At the end of their fourth run together, John points out how good he is at this.

“Yeah,” he replies, a sort of bashful look coming over his face. They’re walking back through the park, and a light rain is falling, leaving them both soaked through. “I used to be a teacher actually.”

“Really? Why’d you switch to nursing?” 

“Needed a change,” he admits. Still looking embarrassed, he wipes some of the rain from his face, leaving a few drops clinging to his eyelashes. “My mum thought I was daft. Leaving teaching in order to go back to school for nursing. I just . . . I was a primary school teacher in the village where I grew up, had never left, had been dating the same person since secondary. We broke up, and I needed a change. I wanted to do something useful.” He stops and looks up at the grey sky marbled with dense clouds. “I feel like that sounds a bit lame sometimes. Not quite noble enough.”

“No. Not at all.” John insists quietly. He takes a deep breath. “I never really talk about it, but my reasons for joining the army were along similar lines. I was in the program at St. Bart’s, had always imagined working as a GP or surgeon in some village, had been dating this girl for a year who . . . well, I sort of foolishly thought she might want to marry me. And when she finally disabused me of that notion, I just really needed to get out. Out of London, anywhere really, do something physical. Needed to go somewhere where I was _needed_.”

They’re standing on a corner just outside the park now, the anemic Sunday morning traffic a soft murmur in the background, and John thinks of the hectic, terrifying pace of war. The blistering heat of the desert, the always inadequate supplies; he remembers watching friends and strangers bleed out beneath his frantic hands. The distant sounds of bombs, constant and loud enough to drown out any thoughts of his ex-girlfriend or of life back in England. It seemed like a selfish, naïve reason to go to war, but in the end, he couldn’t regret it for a minute.

John startles slightly when he feels Marty’s hand on his bicep. It’s not demanding or even awkward, which, like a lot of things about Marty, is surprising and nice. It’s just a touch, meant to comfort, and John smiles gratefully up at him. He can’t really recall the last time anyone’s offered him that sort thing: guilt-free, agenda-free comforting. 

“I hope the moral of the story isn’t that we should be thankful for our exes,” Marty jokes—John huffs a startled laugh in response and shakes his head with a smile. “Good, ‘cause mines a real wanker.” Marty grins broadly and they continue their walk back toward Baker Street.

It’s not until later, when he’s stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room, ice packs on both knees, that he allows himself to think about choice. The choices he made that led him to enlist the army, the choices he made in Afghanistan that led him back to London, and the choices he’s made ever since that have brought him to this sofa, this empty flat and broken heart.

He _is_ thankful for Emily, his ex-girlfriend from med school, who told him she wasn’t ready to settle down and that he shouldn’t be either. She was right, of course; as soon as he’d arrived in Afghanistan, he’d known she’d been right. Because death and firefight and IEDs were as far away from quiet domesticity as you could get, and he was terrified still to admit how much he’d loved every minute. In those months, he was as grateful to Emily for the rejection that led him to the army as he would later be for the bullet that sent him home. Because John’s beginning to realize that it might just be his destiny to never fully appreciate anything until well after the fact.

When he returned to London from the war, he spent his days loathing every inch of torn flesh on his shoulder, ripped apart by a single bullet and later marred further by infection. Like that of a man twenty years his senior, his body ached in the cold damp of London, an ache that was mirrored in his leg. He’d hurt it when he went down from the shot, but it had long since healed, and the doctors assured him there was nothing seriously wrong—a psychosomatic injury, they had called it. In John’s mind, it was just another broken piece of a damaged whole. He’d returned to London, wounded and without purpose, and suddenly longing for the once cherished dream of a village practice with a pretty wife, his former gratitude toward Emily quickly soured.

Until that cold day in January when he hobbled behind Mike Stamford into a lab room at St. Bart’s, and his whole life changed. It was less than a day later, breathing hard and laughing in the downstairs hall of Baker Street that he first thought, “Thank god I was shot.” He’s been thankful every day since for the bullet, the infection, Emily’s rejection, all of it, because they had all led him to Sherlock Holmes. 

John closes his eyes against the swift, choking surge of emotions, practicing the breathing exercises that Ella’s given him to help stave off oncoming panic attacks.

He spends a lot of time actively avoiding thinking about Sherlock, but here, mired deep in memories of his past and his choices, it’s hard to steer his thoughts away from him. Because, in a lot of ways, when they were together, it felt as though every action, every choice, in John’s life had been leading him to Sherlock’s side. As though he’d been unknowingly gathering the tools he’d need: the medical knowledge, the doctor’s patience and soldier’s rash stupidity, loyalty. All of it exactly what Sherlock needed.

And his love? Had Sherlock needed that too? Had he even known that he had it?

These are thoughts that needle their way into John’s brain, that wait until his mind’s at rest, before launching their attack. It’s one of the many reasons he’s been enjoying his time with Marty—when they’re together, John’s thoughts are so entirely divorced from Baker Street that the spectre of Sherlock rarely intrudes. They can just run and laugh and talk about matches or ridiculous movies or the race, and John isn’t afraid of being gut-punched by his feelings at any moment. And that’s a welcome relief.

 


End file.
